Agents: Power Surge
by Stormhawk
Summary: Greer's power finally gets the best of him, and he snaps.


**Title:** Power Surge

**Author:** Stormhawk

**Rating:** R (for violence)

**Disclaimer: **

Matrix Wachowski Brothers and Warner Brothers

ATS Me.

Greer, Moires Overlord Mordax (though since she isn't coming back, I have the full rights to them.)

Stef Me

**Word Count: **7222 (I know it's not as long as PL, but give me a break...)

**Summary:** Greer's power finally gets the best of him when Nicolas Edmund returns from the dead.

**Notes:** Part 2 of the Powers Trilogy. To anyone who isn't a board member and is confused as to why this is being written by two different authors the reason is simple: Lord Mordy isn't writing ATS anymore, so I'm taking over all of her stories (and yes, that means more JTK is on the way!)

Part 3 of this, Power Outage, is being written at the moment, and should be finished sometime in the next week or two.

**Please read and Review.**

Greer stared at the screen, which bore the likeness of Nicholas Edmund, one of the only creatures ever to bare the same condition as the raven-haired recruit. He was haughty looking, with high cheek-bones and a wide mouth, blonde braided hair, and sharp blue eyes behind his small round glasses. Something tensed inside of Greer's chest.

"I thought you said he was dead," Greer asked sharply drawing breath, never taking his eyes from the screen.

"He is dead," Jones said, sounding both amazed and disturbed. "I killed him myself, as I told you. However, he does not seem to be dead at the moment. Perhaps it is a glitch?" The agent ran his fingers over the keyboard with preternatural speed. "Or...perhaps...No, impossible."

Greer snapped his head to the side. "What's impossible?"

"Well, not completely impossible, I suppose, but highly, highly improbable. The damaged uplink that trapped his consciousness- what was left of it- in the matrix, could have, well, resembled him digitally. It's the only explanation I can think of."

The recruit stared intensely at the screen. "I hate him."

"That's reasonable," Jones said. "He is a rebel, and a madman, and a killer. Also he is now an unknown entity..."

Greer stood up. "Jones, you want to examine this guy, right?"

"Indeed. I believe that if I was able to study him, it might provide valuable insight into both the nature of your problem, and the nature of the matrix in general."

He nodded, the long black strands of hair covering his face for a moment. "I'll be back."

"Greer wait!" Jones practically screamed as the recruit reached for the door.

"What?" Greer asked without turning around.

"Don't go," Jones whispered as he stood and tried to take a hold of Greer's hand. Greer gripped the tech's hand in a way that was anything but comforting and loving.

"I have to," he muttered.

Jones looked back to the screen, "all I am required to do is report a new exile. That can be the extent of my report. I don't have report that Nicolas Edmund is back. I..."

"Jones, you need to report this. You need to find out what he is. We have to stop them before history tries to repeat itself."

"I'm afraid that history is going to repeat itself," the tech said softly, "but that you will be pulled into that history."

"Maybe it's fate," Greer said morbidly, "maybe he's here to drag me further into his hell. Like a blood-stained reaper collecting one of his own."

"Don't talk like that," Jones said, "you're nothing like him."

"I'm not me anymore!" Greer screamed as he kicked his chair, it flew away from him and smashed into the wall. "I murdered people tonight!"

"...rebels?"

"Yes rebels, at least I'm pretty sure they were rebels..."

"Then you did your job."

"Jones, you don't get it," Greer whispered angrily, "I didn't kill them, I murdered them. I don't have a year, I've been losing myself for weeks. Little by little, I'm going insane. I don't want to die, but maybe it's the best thing I can do, before I hurt someone that isn't a rebel. I don't have a year." The recruit stared at the screen, "I think we both know what's going to happen."

"This is all my fault, his consciousness was trapped, I should have realized that this could have happened....this is...all my fault."

Jones closed his eyes as tears welled up in them, Greer pulled the tech agent close, holding his head to his chest and running his fingers through the tech's sandy hair. "Don't cry for me Jones, just...don't forget about me."

Jones slowly sat up and stared at Greer, "I will never, never forget about you."

"But you're immortal, I mean, won't you forget about me after a while?"

"No," Jones said softly, "I couldn't forget us."

"You're going to talk to the Mainframe aren't you?

"You even had to ask?"

"What do you think they're going to say?"

"I honestly don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do if they..."

Greer sighed, "I know you'll do your best."

The recruit pulled the older man close, and kissed him one more time, feeling the agent's soft skin and remnants of his tears before he let him go.

With one more look, he strode from the room, slamming the door on his way out.

Shuddering, Jones turned and sat back down in front of his monitor. Trembling, he pulled up the security tape of Final Haven, during Greer's battle. With tears streaming from his eyes, he watched the man he loved brutally murder rebels in a way that was far too reminiscent of the Emunds' last gory battle.

He watched as Greer fell into a heap on the security video and felt uncertain. He hadn't known that the recruit was capable of something like this. He knew that Greer was a great fighter, but this was...as Greer had said, murder.

He required to screen back to Nick's position. The supposedly dead rebel looked confused. He was staring at an old newspaper that he had picked up off the ground. A girl ran over to him and grabbed his shoulder.

Jones sat up straight in his chair, the girl was Claire. Claire Edmund. They whispered to each other for a moment and then took off down the street. By the looks of things, neither was aware of their last encounter.

Nick, he could to a point, understand how he had come back, but Claire was another problem. But when a problem as broad as this occurred, sometimes the details were unimportant.

No matter how much he dreaded it, Jones knew that he had to report this. Exiles they could ignore to a certain point, but when a human mind got caught in the Matrix, that was something that required immediate attention. Especially when the minds concerned belonged to Nick and Claire Edmund.

"Jones to Smith," he said as he replaced his earpiece.

Yes?

"Sir, there is something you need to see."

All right.

Smith appeared in his office a moment later, and Jones merely pointed to the screen.

"File footage of the Edmunds?" Smith inquired.

"This is happening right now."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know, but the Edmunds are back."

"This needs to be dealt with. Now." Smith touched his earpiece. "Smith to Brown, report."

"What's the problem sir?"

"Report to Jones' office."

The combat agent appeared instantly and saw the image on the screen before he looked at the other two agents. "How are we going to deal with this?" he asked as his lip curled in disgust.

"They read as exiles for the most part," Jones said, "but there is also a lot of unknown data. Probably unimportant."

"Meaning they can be killed as easily as ordinary exiles?"

"Most likely," Jones said with a slight nod.

Brown and Smith looked at each other and shifted to the Edmunds' location.

00000

"Hey Greer," Stef said as he walked down to the hall toward her. "Still wanna play Mortal Kombat?"

Greer didn't say anything and pushed past her.

"What's wrong?" she asked as she caught up with him.

He spun around, "leave me alone," he said fiercely.

"Relax would you? I just wanted to know what's wrong."

"It's none of your business, so stay out of my way." He walked down to the elevator and required his katana as he got in.

00000

"Defrag what the hell is going on?" Frag, AKA Claire Edmund asked her brother as he dialed the number for their ship.

"I don't know Frag, I really don't," Nick answered as he slammed the phone back down on the receiver when the number didn't answer. "None of this makes sense."

"What's the last thing you remember?" Frag asked her brother.

"Agents!"

"No, the area was clear."

Nick grabbed his sister's shoulder and spun her around, "no Frag, Agents!"

The grabbed for their guns but found them missing. They looked at each other and ran.

Brown and Smith pursued them, their guns drawn.

Nick and Claire ran down the quiet nighttime street.

"The paper said it's twenty years in the future!" Claire screamed. "How is that possible?"

"It's not!" Nick yelled back as they both jumped over an eight-foot chain-link fence. "It's one of their tricks."

"If it's a trick, then why are they chasing us?" Claire asked as she looked back at the agents that were steadily gaining on them.

"Stop asking me everything!" Nick shouted at her, "you always expect me to know everything Frag!"

"You're my older brother! You're supposed to know!"

"Older by twelve minutes!"

Claire tripped and hit the ground hard, Nick stopped and tried to help her up but she couldn't get up. Nick leant over her and watched in horror as her pupils dilated wider than naturally possible, then condensed to a slit before returning to normal.

She looked up at him with an impossible calm, "I can hear something," she said in a quietly eerie voice. "Something is coming this way."

"Forget what's coming, they're right there!" Nick said as he looked up at the agents who were less than twenty feet from them.

"Don't you hear it?" Claire asked him, "something is coming closer. I don't know what it is, but it sounds familiar..."

"Get up Frag, get up!" Nick screamed as he pulled at her with all of his strength. Slowly she stood and looked at the agents.

"I don't think we have to worry about them," she said in the same slow voice.

"Frag, you're not acting like yourself."

"I don't feel much like myself," she said as she shook her head, he small braids, much like her brother's flying around her head.

The agents raised their gun and fired. Nick ducked but Claire stood tall, and with a smile, a sonic forcefield emanated from her, a solid sonic wall formed from all the calls in the buildings around them. The bullets were knocked off course.

"That was your surprise you were going on about?" Nick asked her. For the last few weeks (at least, the last few weeks according to his memory) Frag had been going on about how she had been able to do something different with her power. But with the limited time they had been in the Matrix, she hadn't had a chance to show him.

"Well, you can end people's calls, I guess our powers are different..." The Edmund sister trailed off and dropped to her knees.

000

"Their power seems to have mutated," Brown observed.

Smith gave him a look that blatantly said, 'you think?' "That is obvious Agent Brown."

Capture them alive if you can," Jones' voice came over their earpieces. Information gathered from them could be invaluable.

"That might not be possible Jones," Smith said calmly.

000

"The calls," Claire whimpered, "Nick, they're too loud." Nick was torn between protecting his sister and following his instincts to run as the agents watched him.

"Get up Frag, just get up. We're dead if we don't."

Quietly, and without ceremony, the mind of Claire 'Frag' Edmund, snapped like a thread.

"We are dead Nicolas," Claire said as she stood and brushed all of her braids back and straightened her clothes, which were of a standard rebel-type, tight leather pants, and a red corset with a black fishnet overshirt. "Can't you see it?"

"See what?"

"Something is wrong here, and it's us. It's twenty, twenty-one, years since the last moment we remember, and there are two agents standing RIGHT THERE and they haven't really tried to kill us. They know there's something wrong with us. We're dead Defrag, we just aren't resting yet."

"Is that true?" Nick screamed at the agents.

"Both of you have been dead for twenty-one years," Smith said calmly. "And you'll be coming with us one way or the other."

"I think it'll be the other," Claire said. "You can go Defrag, I'll hold these ones off for a while. Just listen and you'll hear what I heard."

"I'm not leaving you with them."

"We're already dead Nick, what else can they do to us?"

Nick hesitated for a long moment, and then ran, leaving his sister to deal with the agents.

Brown starting walking forward, not seeing the capture of one rebel/exile as a great challenge. He turned when he heard the roar of a motorbike engine.

And then he was beheaded.

Smith spun and saw Greer, crouching on his bike as it screamed up the alley, gunning it with his right hand and his katana, slick with Brown's blood, in his left.

"Recruit!" Smith managed to say before the katana cut him through.

Greer jumped off his bike and walked over to Claire, "I heard something strange, I heard you coming," she said as she reached out toward him. "You're like me and Defrag, I can hear your power."

Greer's eyes rolled around in his head, not really focussing on the Edmund in front of him, "where's your brother? Defrag isn't it, where is he? You, I didn't expect you, but Nick probably bought some part of you back with him. We want to study him, and maybe we can stop me from completely losing it, though I severely doubt it."

"You'll find him," Frag said quietly, "you'll know him, you'll hear him, he's not that hard to find."

"Yeah," he said with a manic look in his eyes, "I guess I will, whether or not I remember to stop myself before he's dead is another thing."

He twirled the perfectly balanced sword in his hand, and then, with the blade facing upward, he sliced her through. Dispassionately, he pulled the blade upward, cutting through flesh, organs and bone.

In a bloodstained arc, he twisted the blade up until it exited it through her ribcage. The katana moved quickly once it was free of the body, and stopped a mere micron from his face.

Frag Edmund had sprayed blood onto him, but it didn't even notice it. He walked over to the coppertop that Smith had been using as a host, ripped a strip from the man's shirt and almost ritualistically cleaned the blood off his blade.

He sheathed it and climbed back onto his bike and took off, searching with his mind for Nick Edmund. The rebel was far, considering he was on foot, but he could still feel an unfamiliar tug on his power that could only be Nicolas Edmund.

Greer howled into the night as he sped his bike along the road, not even noticing that he was narrowly missing every vehicle and pedestrian that was out at this late hour.

00000

The predator's eyes changed color as he slipped into a shadowy alley and shifted back into his true form, that of a creature halfway between a big cat and a lizard, scaling quickly and nimbly up a fire escape, he leapt to the edge of the building and looked down to the street.

Grimoires smelt the air again, he had smelt something delicious in his human form (as he always tried to retain some of his...animal senses...while he was masquerading as a human, without any physical signs showing.

His eyes searched the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of what he had smelt. He saw the city clearer than day, and with a feral grin saw his prey, another predator.

He saw the young hunter, Vincent Greer on a beautiful machine, a motorbike, and by its scent, it was the same one he had caught the scent of when he had visited the strange backup version of this world.

All in all, Grimoires preferred the real Matrix to the backup, there was a much wider range of prey in this world. More beings to feast upon and by feasting, gain more forms in which to change.

The beast leapt from rooftop to rooftop, following the young man at a reasonable distance, not that he would even see him in his state.

The creature that had been the leader of the Jabberwocky pack could smell the bloodlust radiating off Greer, not bloodlust in the way that humans used it - a gross misunderstanding in his opinion - but a true lust for blood. Not like that of a murderer, to which humans had a habit of attaching the terms to, but an animal, bestial need to spill the blood of his enemy.

Grimoires had no true concept of a soul, but his deepest mind sang, the young hunter was finally releasing his predator's soul. He was no longer fighting or denying the side that Grimoires had seen in him, he was finally expressing that he was a true predator, the lion of this steel jungle. Grimoires smiled and licked his lips with his long tongue, the young hunter was the top predator in this place, next to him of course.

He jumped across to another building and howled as Greer left his sight for the time being. "You will be mine, young hunter, you and your predator's soul will be mine," he promised as the tall buildings blocked his last view of Greer.

00000

Brown and Smith both shifted to Jones' office. Jones looked up from his screens, "I know what happened to you both, and I have no explanation other than I believe that Recruit Greer is not quite mentally stable at the moment. This is probably due in part to the return of these Edmund fragments."

"Correct me if I am wrong Jones, but Claire Edmund was killed before the link was severed."

"But her 'power' was malfunctioning in the same fashion as Nicolas' was. I can only theorize that she was in part trapped, the same as he was. I have no explanations at this point beyond that."

"Where is Recruit Greer now?"

"Pursuing Nicolas Edmund. I think he is able to trace him using his power. Since their powers are of a common source, I think that they may act somewhat like a homing beacon to each other."

"Shift him back here," Brown said. "What he did cannot be excused."

"I can't," Jones said, appearing normal, but underneath his stoic exterior, he was desperately trying to keep himself together. "The system is unable to lock onto him properly."

"Jones?" Smith questioned, feeling that there was something the tech was failing to mention.

"I believe that Recruit Greer's power may be advancing far more quickly than the Edmund's, though I have no proof of that."

"Do you have something else to back this up?"

Reluctantly, Jones pulled up the video footage from Final Haven. "Dealing with rebels," Jones said after they had reviewed it, "in such a brutal manner, is out of character for him. No rational person..." Jones looked up at Brown and then rephrased his sentence, "no rational recruit would dispose of rebels in such a way."

00000

Greer finally spotted Defrag, who was moving impossibly fast for a human, but also, much faster than rebels were usually able to move, that's why it had taken so long for him to catch up.

Turning the bike at an impossibly fast speed that would have killed anyone else, he slammed on the breaks right in front of Nick Edmund. The rebel slammed into the bike and then backed up a few paces, keeping his eyes locked to Greer's.

As the two stared at each other, Greer felt the last of his mind slip away.

With the grace only afforded to those who know the truth of the world, they started to fight.

Nick was just as fast as Greer was, and had no trouble avoiding all of Greer's coldly calculated strikes. Angry at the lack of progress, Greer slammed his katana into a tree and leapt at Nick.

Greer knocked his predecessor to the ground and wrapped his hands around his neck. Nick grinned and pushed the recruit off.

No words were exchanged, their powers being so close gave them a very rudimentary form of telepathy, not words or images, just their pure intent. And their intents were simple, each was planning to wipe the other off the face of the planet.

Defrag leapt sixty feet up in the air and spun, as he landed, he kicked Greer and the raven-haired young man was knocked back from the force of all of the inertia.

Greer cracked the concrete as he was knocked down, and didn't even feel the rapidly forming bruises.

Both of them were breathing heavily, and they ran at each other again and again, not aware that they were being watched.

000

"They're both insane," Brown deduced coldly.

"There's no direct threat at the moment Brown, Edmund seems to be content with fighting the recruit, there is no reason for you to stay here if you don't wish to."

"If the situation gets out of hand, I want to be informed," Brown said curtly and then shifted away.

Jones stared a blank monitor, not wanting to look back and see Greer in this state. As he half-listened, he caught snatches of what Greer was saying. The silent fighting had stopped, but instead of the quips and insults that Greer usually flung during his battles, Greer was muttering just fragments of sentences, 'examine' 'experiment' 'undead' 'immortal' and 'power' were some of the words he heard.

Smith watched the screen, "this is unfortunate, I didn't expect this to happen so soon, but it wasn't impossible, as you said when he was recruited."

"I didn't know him back then," Jones said, "but I do now, I'm not able to be as detached as you."

"I'm not detached," Smith said, "I'm going to miss him."

"Stop talking like that! He's not dead yet!" Jones screamed. Smith took a step back, he had never heard Jones yell like that before. "I'm sorry," Jones said as he turned back to the screen, but closed his eyes underneath his sunglasses.

"I'm sorry," Smith said, "I didn't realize."

"Of course you didn't," Jones said sarcastically, "no one does. Tech agents in general are ignored but..." he cut his rant off, and looked back at the screen, hoping that he was going to wake up from this glitch. It could just be a glitch, and he was going to wake up and find Greer right there with him, not insane, and not murdering, just the Greer he loved.

"I've recently been informed that I have as the humans say, 'blinders' on when it comes to anything than what directly concerns me, that I don't fully appreciate the feelings of those around me. I see it has further applications than what I thought."

"My relationship with him is by no means entirely professional, and I am having trouble dealing with the fact that he's going to die tonight."

"He may be able to be brought back here and treated..."

"No, there's no treatment, the problem is with his pod hardware, there is nothing we can do. And, the look in his eyes, he knew he wasn't coming back. Even if he's somehow brought back alive I doubt he would want to or agree to be locked up for his own safety. You can see he's becoming more and more irrational by the second..." Jones went silent for a moment.

"Are you going to petition for him to be converted to an agent?"

"Of course."

"I hope that permission is granted."

"That means a lot, thank you."

00000

Nick fell back after Greer delivered a devastating blow. The young man ripped off his trench coat and spat blood onto the pavement. Greer pulled his katana from the tree and walked over to finish him off.

As he swung the blade down, Nick kicked his legs out from under him and they both tumbled down the tall set of stairs down to the subway. Nick skidded across the pavement and lay on his back, holding his shattered ribcage, bubbling blood.

Greer lay at the bottom of the stairs, almost unconscious. All he could see was a vague, and after a moment that faded and all he could see were shades of red, shades of blood.

Soft feminine fingers brushed over his face, and lingered over his cuts, and then left. Slowly, as his strength returned, he groped around for his sword, wrapped his fingers strongly around his katana and opened his eyes.

He stood and saw his enemy lying pathetically on the ground, unable to move. His eyes and soul burning in the flames of insanity, he moved in for the kill.

000

Grimoires, using the form of Minako, the Japanese recruit, the first to have fallen through into his world, licked his fingers that were covered in the blood of Vincent Greer. There were traces of other's blood, but Greer's blood had a taste that was intoxicating to the point of drunkenness, it the taste of another hunter. Grimoires had never tasted anything quite like it before.

Minako was one of his weaker forms, but it had its own advantages that the bulk of his other forms didn't have - Minako was female.

Though physically smaller and less imposing than some of his impressive male forms, the body of a female human was a weapon of its own, so long as its owner knew how to wield it. And he was a master of using dangerous things for his own wants and needs, as any predator should be.

000

Nick screamed as Greer came closer, even in his less-than-stable state, though nowhere near as gone as the recruit in front of him, knew what was going to happen, and wasn't going to accept it lightly.

The insane recruit was practically frothing at the mouth as he closed in on Nick. His eyes flicked in a slow recognition of the sound of a train coming along the subway track.

Nick screamed as Greer grabbed him by his feet and dragged him across the platform. Defrag tried to grab a hold of anything but Greer swung him around as the light from the train approached and then he swung him around so that he slammed into the front of the speeding train.

00000

"You can find Motoki, but you can't hide from us!" a voice screamed into the night. Grimoires, still in the guise of Minako looked up to see another young Japanese woman, taller than his current form, and with long black hair, running down the street toward her, her long black hair flying behind her.

Behind her, two vampires came running around the corner. Grimoires allowed Minako's eyes to drop away so that he could use his own. These were the first vampires that Grimoires had actually seen, but some of the forms he had consumed had had prior knowledge of them, and so he knew about them.

Motoki saw Grimoires and froze, skidding to a halt, she pulled out two pairs of scissors and twirled them in a display of power. Grimoires just stared, unsure of why he had warranted this reaction.

The vampires froze, "recruit!" one of them yelled.

"No, it's not," the other replied, "that's not...anything, look at its code."

"You're not a recruit?" Motoki asked, "there are no agents around?"

"No so far as I know," Grimoires murmured.

"Are you an exile?" she asked hurriedly, "you're not reading as anything."

"If that's not a recruit or an agent," one of the vampires said, "I'm getting Motoki, that bounty will keep us in store-bought blood for a year."

Grimoires cocked his head to the side, "you seem to be in a spot of trouble."

"There's a bounty on my head," Motoki said as she turned and brandished her scissors as weapons. Grimoires saw the shine and razor sharp edge and knew that they were, despite their appearance, quite dangerous weapons.

"Perhaps I can help you," Grimoires drawled as the vampires circled the scissors-wielding exile, and ignoring him for the moment.

"Yeah, like you could help me," Motoki said sarcastically as she slashed at one of the vampires, missing the pale man by inches.

Grimoires shifted into his real form and dispatched the two vampires in one leap, one bite and one slash of his claws.

He sat back on his haunches and licked the blood off his paws, "I helped you."

Motoki bowed to him, "I owe you my thanks."

"Thanks are nothing but words."

Motoki stowed her scissors back in their sheaths, "were you thinking something else?"

"You might say I am looking for people to assist me, you seem like you are a half-competent warrior, what would you say to coming into my employ?"

"What kind of work are we talking?"

"The streets are not safe to talk of such things," he said as he shifted back into Minako's form, "come and explain."

"Just so you know," Motoki said, "I don't take shit. I stabbed my old boss, son of a French bitch lived though."

"If you cause me any trouble," Grimoires said as his eyes turned golden in the night, "I will simply kill and eat you." Motoki stopped walking and stared at him, "but," he said, "if you cause me no trouble, there will be no need for that."

00000

Jones was frozen to his seat, a few moments had passed since Greer had...killed...Nicolas Edmund, but the agent felt as though he had lost all sense of time. What he had seen on the live feed was going to stay with him forever.

He required his green-tinged skin back to normal, and tried to quell the feeling of nausea that was circulating through his system. Jones watched as Greer walked across the platform back toward the stairs in an unsteady fashion, wiping the blood off his face with the hand that wasn't practically fused to his katana.

Jones, report to my office right now. Smith said over his earpiece.

"But sir," Jones protested, "shouldn't I keep monitoring Greer?"

This will only take a few moments.

Jones looked back to his monitor, there seemed to be no danger at the moment, Greer seemed to be alone down there, so he took a breath and shifted out of his office.

000

Greer stood in the center of the platform, incoherent and unsure of what to do next.

"Buddy, just put the sword down!" the voice of an older man said.

Greer looked back with a snarl and saw the driver of the train holding a pistol at him. "Cops are on their way, put the sword down and no one gets hurt."

"Hey what's going on?" a voice called as a young woman stuck her head out of the basically empty train, the only other passengers were either drunk or unconscious, and none had noticed that the train had stopped.

"Lady get back in the train!" the driver screamed. The girl looked across and saw a longhaired madman wielding a bloody sword. She screamed and jumped back in the train, pulling and holding the door shut and praying as she pulled out her cell phone to call for help.

Greer's vision slipped away from the old man and looked through the door of the train and saw a young woman in black clothes with black and red hair. Jerkily, he reached his hand up to his ear where his dragon earring usually was, but that Yami had taken back earlier. Though his blood-haze and the glass of the train windows, the girl looked enough like her.

Greer brought his katana up to his face and ran the flat of the blade down his cheek before walking toward the train and the terrified young woman.

The driver ran between him and the train and leveled the gun at him in shaking hands, sweat forming on his wrinkled brow. "Don't do anything stupid," he pleaded.

Greer shook his head at the man and crowed, the horrible sound echoing through the cavernous station.

The driver shot Greer in his right arm, hoping to make him drop the weapon. The driver, a decent man who had earlier that day been to his granddaughter's first birthday party, was a little wrinkled, a little bald and a little overweight, but couldn't bring himself to kill anyone.

As he watched in horror as Greer plunged two fingers into the bullet wound and dig it out without feeling any pain, he knew he was going to have to do something otherwise he and his passenger were going to die at the hands of a madman.

Greer pulled the bullet out, rubbed it between two fingers and then dropped it.

The driver leveled the gun again and emptied the gun. Greer deflected each and everyone of the bullets with his sword, and then, faster than the old man could perceive, covered the distance between them and pierced him with the bloodstained blade. The old man cried out in pain before succumbing to the wound.

Greer pushed the body aside with ease and walked the few feet to the train. With a grin that would have terrified any vampire in the Matrix, he looked through the window and knocked on it.

The young woman, Michelle, screamed and tried to hold the door shut. Greer punched out both windows with his bare fist, showering her in glass, before pulling the door open with utter ease.

Michelle ran down the middle of the train, hoping that one of the other passengers in the adjoining carriages would wake and come to her aid. She had sneaked out of the house, her parents thought she was home in bed.

Greer grabbed her hair, pulled her back to him and then shoved her down to the floor. Michelle recovered quickly, but it was too late. She tried to crawl away from him, but Greer placed a heavy boot on her back and pinned her down.

"Help!" she screamed, but no one heard her. "Help me!"

Greer knelt and flipped her over onto her back, "please let me go!" she screamed as the fluorescent lighting of the train reflected off the sword. Even as she screamed for mercy, she knew she wasn't going to get it. The old man, the driver, had died. Died trying to protect her.

"What did I do to you?" she cried at Greer as she stared down at her, his boot applying crushing force to her chest.

Greer dropped suddenly, straddling her chest, his right knee kept her left arm pinned and he picked up her right, squeezing his wrist, he cut into it with his katana.

Michelle screamed, the pain wasn't like anything she had ever felt before. The madman held her wrist over her face and she watched helplessly as her own blood splattered onto her face.

She squeezed her eyes closed and cried. _I'll go back to church, I'll pay my taxes without complaint, I'll do well in school, I'll stop bugging my sister, I'll do anything,_ she begged silently, _just please get me out of this._

She opened her eyes and tried to pull her wrist away from him, she struggled but he was unmovable. She fought with all of her strength but he just kept staring down at her, relishing her pain.

She wasn't supposed to die like this! Things like that didn't happen to people like her. This wasn't supposed to happen, someone was supposed to save her. No one deserved to be killed by a madman in a subway car.

He released her hand and stood, she struggled to get up but only made it to her knees when she caught a glimpse of the blade coming toward her.

Her scream was cut short when her decapitated body with the floor of the train with a sick splat.

00000

Jones shifted back to his office, Smith had just informed him that since the system couldn't lock onto Greer and shift him anywhere, they were going to have to go after him in force. Though it had pained him, Jones had agreed.

He looked at the screen and screamed at what he saw. He turned to the next monitor and watched from the second he had left to see Smith.

"Smith," he said as he put a hand to his earpiece, "you must label Greer a danger to the system."

What happened? Smith asked.

"He had killed two civilians," Jones whispered, "something needs to be done before he hurts anyone else."

I will inform the mainframe.

Jones waited for Smith to get back to him, as he watched Greer on the screen. The young man was sitting in one of seats, tracing his finger up his katana. Jones took this as a minor blessing, at least he wasn't seeking out anymore victims. Monitoring his vital signs, it appeared he was close to running on empty. He was way past exhaustion but his deranged mind hadn't caught onto the fact, but at least for the moment he was still.

He heard his earpiece crackle and he waited for Smith to start talking. There was a sigh on the other end, I have just spoken with Clarke. He has ordered that Greer is to be dealt with using extreme force.

"Which one of us is the executioner?" Jones asked hollowly.

Mimosa.

"Have you informed her?"

No, I would like for you to do that.

"Yes, sir."

Jones got up and slowly walked toward Stef's office, knowing that it had to happen, but grieving nonetheless. Without knocking, he pushed open the door to her office.

"Stef?"

Stef held up one hand and finished typing something with the other, "half a minute please Jones, I'm just finishing an email." She smiled to herself and clicked the mouse. "Yeah?" she asked as she looked up.

The look on his face said it all.

"What happened Jones? It's Greer isn't it?"

The tech nodded slowly.

"What happened?"

"He has...gone insane," he said slowly. "He's killed two civilians, and Nicolas Edmund."

"The rebel that died two decades ago?"

"The same. Because of his state, he has been officially labeled a danger to the system and as such must be destroyed."

"Can't we just capture and sedate him? Help him in some way?" she asked with a mix of hope and fear. "There's got to be some way..."

"No," he said quietly, "all dangers must be dealt with in the same way. They must be destroyed. The only way Greer will be able to come back is if I am allowed to convert him to an agent after he is killed."

"So if he has to be destroyed, that means one of us has to go out and do it?"

"Yes," Jones said, "you."

She stared at him, "no."

"It's an order, and if you don't, I'll have to..." Jones said as he trembled. Stef made her way quickly across to him and put her arms around him, pulling his head down onto her shoulder. Being significantly shorter, it wasn't easy, but he seemed to understand that she was trying to comfort him. "He's going to die tonight and there's nothing I can do to stop it from happening," he whispered.

"You can stop him from staying dead," she said, "contact Clarke, tell him you need a meeting with the mainframe. I'll...I'll go...I will follow the order."

"Thank you," he said, "you know I wouldn't be able to do it."

"I wish neither of us had to." She held him for a moment, "promise me, if they for some reason decide to revoke the order, tell me."

"If they rescind it, you will hear it that very instant."

"When you bring him back, he's buying the first round of sake for putting us through this."

Jones nodded numbly as she shifted away. She appeared at the platform and put a hand over her mouth when she saw the body of the guard, looking through the windows of the train, she saw him so she slowly made her way toward him.

Greer stood when he heard her. She stared at him and barely even recognized him, his clothes were strained in more blood what a transfusion patient needed. His loose hair was slick with blood or tangled into knots. His arm had a bullet hole in it and blood from that was pouring down his arm. He looked like a vision from a deep level of hell.

And it wasn't only his terrifying appearance, his whole being was off. He breathing was irregular and he was swaying like an ape or a clumsy dancer to an unseen beat. Snarling, he walked toward her with his blade gleaming in the light.

"Greer!" Stef screamed, hoping to break through the wall of his insanity. "Greer, look at me!"

The recruit came closer and she backed away, and got off the train, knowing what she had been ordered to do, but unwilling to kill him yet. She had to see for herself that he was truly gone before pulling the trigger.

"Don't you know who I am?" she asked as she shot at the blade, shattering it. He dropped the blade and kept on coming at her.

He knocked her to the ground, he pinned her and starting clawing at her like a wild beast, tearing deep grooves into her skin. She tried to block his strikes but he was fast. Too fast.

She tried to push him off, but he was too strong. He was only a human and he was too strong. Stef felt a stab of true fear as she struggled to get free, Greer was acting like a caveman, someone who had no control of his higher brain functions at all. It wasn't like he could truly hurt her, at least she didn't think so. Code was only so strong, and Greer was a powerhouse of violence about to go nuclear.

With a desperate scream, she pushed him off. He landed with a grunt on the platform, about ten feet away from her.

Gasping for air and wiping the blood from her face she picked her gun up from the ground and trained it down at Greer before she realized what she was doing. She started to drop the gun back down when she consciously realized whom it was she was aiming her gun at.

It wasn't his fault he was acting like this. She didn't want to shoot her friend.

Stef, you're going to have to do it.

"Jones?" she asked as she put a hand to her earpiece.

She could hear the tears in the tech's voice, please.

"I can't kill him!" she screamed as Greer started to push himself to his feet, licking the blood from around his mouth.

Please, you have to.

"I can't do it," she said as she backed away from Greer, "I can't shoot him."

It's what you were sent to do.

"I never thought..."

Do it Stef. But, tell him, that I love him. Stef stood stoically, looking at the bloodied figure of Greer as he rose to his feet.

"Are you sure?"

His response was slightly more than a whisper, yes.

Greer finished standing and shook himself, his hair flying out in all directions. Stef raised her gun as she had done thousands of times, but she had never had to kill someone that she cared about.

"Agent Jones loves you Recruit Vincent Greer."

She fired, and Greer died.


End file.
